Americans don't respect farm work, they're always looking for cheap nonwhite exploitable labor to pick their food You cannot push white folks to do to farm labor because it is slave (and thus, Black)-coded. FFS, look how they treated Native Hawaiians on those sugar plantations - ThreadSky

sorayanadiamcdonald.com • 34 days ago

Americans don't respect farm work, they're always looking for cheap nonwhite exploitable labor to pick their food

You cannot push white folks to do to farm labor because it is slave (and thus, Black)-coded. FFS, look how they treated Native Hawaiians on those sugar plantations

Reposted from Greg Sargent

This has gotten almost no coverage. But it's an important admission. Trump's pick for Ag Secretary appears to concede the premise that deportations could drive farmers out of business. That contradicts MAGA theology holding that migrants labor can only displace US workers. (cc @pkrugman.bsky.social)

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shell85338.bsky.social•34 days ago

California voted down prison labor reform in preparation

wats.ink•34 days ago

every year in maryland the companies that process crab meat say they need visas for workers to pick the meat. “no americans” will live in a remote dorm away from their families and work seven day weeks starting at 2 am for $9.60 an hour

lynntramonte.bsky.social•34 days ago

If anyone really cared where their eggs came from, they would know ... https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/inside-the-hidden-reality-of-labor-trafficking-in-america/

mkt1882.bsky.social•34 days ago

Probably a ridiculous idea but with everything else that's going on I wouldn't put anything past these people... do you think they'll use prison convicts to pick the produce?

Looking on in horror from Britain! 😏

sorayanadiamcdonald.com•34 days ago

In the US, farm work is the work you force the nonwhite people you conquered to do for as close to unpaid as you can muster

sorayanadiamcdonald.com•34 days ago

It's always a good idea to learn about the people who pick your food and process your meat.

Farm labor is skilled labor and don't forget it!

woodsie98.bsky.social•34 days ago

United Farm Workers- @ufw.bsky.social is here.

sorayanadiamcdonald.com•34 days ago

Relatedly:

wishda.bsky.social•34 days ago

The South tried using prisoners to harvest crops the last time we had a crackdown. It did not go well.

The problem is that farmwork, especially picking fragile crops, is skilled labor. If the worker doesn’t care, you just get baskets of bruised mush.

drtwitch.bsky.social•34 days ago

oh, MS got this one all figured out.... just put a bounty on their heads, give them a lifetime felony and then put those skilled workers into the existing prison pipeline Mississippi HB 1484. (I guess that this will get copied across the country and expanded to other undesirables)

wishda.bsky.social•34 days ago

They still have to care.

Farmwork is incredibly easy to foul if you don’t. You can spoil a crop in ways that no one can spot that means it won’t get to market.

Shit-stained stick to prick apples at the base. It’ll rot before it hits the store.

Many such ancient tricks.

drtwitch.bsky.social•34 days ago

Yes - and I suspect forced labor - even skilled - somehow just won’t be as productive…

wishda.bsky.social•34 days ago

The Confederacy had some instructive adventures in this when they tried to move slave labor into the arms production business.

Those slaves on the line probably killed as many Confederates as the Union, and I hope they enjoyed every little moment of sabotage.

jamtoday.bsky.social•34 days ago

There was a story out of Georgia (I think) several years ago where peach farmers lost their workers due to immigration sweeps (and people being scared off by the prospect) and had to hire Americans to do the job. They nearly went out of business because they worked at like 1/10th the speed.

tchrgrrrl.bsky.social•34 days ago

Americans have long been addicted to cheap food.

I don't think, for most people, they even consider all the invisible labor necessary for that to happen. 😑

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